Time for league to lift its act and act on lifting

Well .... All looks and sounds interesting however I broke my neck 45 years ago today playing in a Grand Final. I have checked the lists and don't see any mention of the accident or me.

The cat has been let out of the bag on the cover up. Now a Melbourne player has revealed that they have come up with the lift to get people to the ground now diving at the knees is banned, and saying its essential in getting the player to the ground. Previous to this season lifts were part of the initial tackle, and no one thought once a player is held to do a a lift. If three blokes can't bring someone to the ground without a lift sounds absurd, to me its more this is an impact move a multiple person judo throw , you hurt someone and they can take time to get up and play the balll. One person lifts then others push down on the upper body and then they go hurtling into the ground. If the lifter however goes too far and the other players fall on top of the players shoulder as they go past the horizontal then iits becomes unbelievably dangerous. Its no coincidence an injury happened three weeks into the season, now they will back off but for how long knowing they have such and effective but high risk gang tackle move. The NRL should be holding an inquiry and seeing which coaches have suddenly adopted this new gang tackle, but they don't want to be telling anyone the teams have come up with a gang tackle with a lift which can cripple people.

To get a list like yours together, I would have to trawl the net for days but mark my words the number of fatalities & severe injuries in RU & AFL are vast. Some info I got b4 giving up due to these sports not really keeping lists (wonder why?). What I will say is your list contains many injuries/deaths from an era where many lives could have been saved due to advances in medicine/understanding of such injuries, so for you to list decades old deaths doesn't relate to modern day footy (in all codes). But looking at current (a decade or two) injuries/fatalities, it seems RL advances in player safety are above AFL/Rugby union. The states in fatalities alone show this: AFL Ron Doig 23 South Fremantle captain-coach on-field injury 1932 George Allen 22 Sunshine full-forward heart failure (during a practice match) 1971 Eddie Ford 28 Katandra on-field injury 1946 Phil Skehan 26 South Melbourne follower pneumonia resulting from an on-field injury 1921 Josh Henderson, aged in his early 20s Mosman Park Football Club knocked as he went for the ball 2012 Melbourne man Shaun Bergin died after being knocked unconscious in a suburban Melbourne match Balwyn VFL 2011 Victorian teenager, Nathan Prince, died following a match in Ballarat. cardiac arrest after receiving a knock to his body during a game 2011 Kyle Thomas, 25, died of head injuries after colliding with another player during a match in Perth 2011 Rugby Union Nicky Allen, 26, New Zealand rugby union player, head injuries sustained during a match (1984) Gareth Jones, 28, Welsh rugby union player, neck injury sustained during a match (2008) http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_have_died_playing_rugby#slide=9&article=How_many_people_have_died_playing_rugby "Between 1890-93 71 players were killed in rugby union related injuries. It states since, many thousands have been killed at all levels of rugby union" 5 more deaths since 2006 (other than Gareth Jones) http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/dec/13/five-deaths-from-head-injuries-amateur-rugby-union Halley Appleby 2011 died from on field injuries (Brisbane) South Africa injuries/Fatalities 2001-2012 http://images.supersport.com/Boksmart_Serious_Injury_Table_updated_January_2012.pdf I can imagine there are so many more fatalities to list but RU does not keep a comprehensive list from what I have found.

Storm Boy - you mentioned rugby union and Aussie Rules injuries trying to diminish the significance of the rugby league ones. I asked you to list the injuries to which you referred, but you haven't. Obviously you were speaking through your hat. Of course the rugby league can do something about dangerous tackles. Everyone bar you accepts that. You ought to stick to rock fishing.

Professor, I have only listed half the deaths and injuries.

Airline crashes are super rare, yet every time they are investigated and measures are taken to ensure that those faults or procedural errors never occur again. Lifting stationary players isnt necessary. No fans will be lost if lifting in tackles is reduced.

Gonads at large: Thank you for the interesting and tragic listings here. I didn't see John Farragher's name, but he was the person I thought o after the McKinnon injury. I think if we toss in the problems with concussion, the regularity of severe injuries, and the speed with which players are expected to get back on the paddock, we are looking at a game with huge physical and emotional costs -- not to mention the financial costs to the health system and the taxpayer. I read that a player recently broke his foot badly, and would be out for 9 weeks. I'm not sure how many people reading this have broken their foot, but 9 months would be pushing it in my opinion. And we have guys who have broken their necks who are still playing, and guys knockd out who front up to play the following week. At the top level, the weekly injury list is frightening. I think if there are calls for boxing to be banned, it is time to ask if rugby league (and rugby union and Aussie rules) should be allowed to continue in their present form, or whether the health costs are too great.

All the contact sports are dangerous, however some sports have more certain type of injuries common to them than others, AFL seems to have people die of heart related complaints, probably by the amount of running puts stress on the heart, but also has some neck injurys, the rugbys where people seem to seek more physical contact has more neck injurys, but less heart realted deaths. And the pace of the game and bigger athletes must also add more danger, however this may be somewhat nullified by more H&S measures by players and officials alike.

Here is the recipients page for injured rugby players in South Africa, there appears to be hundreds, the game is obviously extremely dangerous, i think most people would be totally unaware how many there are. http://www.playersfund.org.za/recipients/index.php?id=&pagenum=4# Extremely sad.

Dear Gondas. I never said AFL or RU had more. Bottom line is you are the one asserting rugby league is dangerous based on a record of 54 deaths. I just asked you to post numbers from AFL and RU since 1927 for comparison if you are going to post 54 deaths in rugby league over such a long period and so many grades and games. I guess as RU is played everywhere the number will be much more than 54. AFL I wouldn't know. Each one of those 54 is sad but you're talking about 1000s of games over the world year after year since 1927 so the number of tackles would be in the millions and you want to point to 54 accidents. On top of that you have collated 54 and somehow concluded the NRL can do something about to prevent them all even though no two are alike. I don't know what your beef is with the NRL admin but you've exaggerated the risks and dangers. Where were you a month ago before the Knights played the Storm? Silent.

http://www.playersfund.org.za/news/article_view.php?id=34 Rugby league is a very dangerous game, but RU is even more so IMO, perhaps many more people play it, so perhaps player numbers to injury rates it is not so, i dont know, but perhaps Rugby League can do something like this link above.

The NRL overspent the budget by $10 million last year with limos, 5-star hotels, and private jets. Yet staff in vital positions are part-timers, and there is no insurance for serious injuries to players. Very serious incompetence.

Honest, consistent, non-hypocritical, competent.

Storm Boy - you challenged me to list the deaths and injuries and I did. You were wrong. Now you want to change the issue once again. Out of the last 5 broken necks in the NRL over the past 3 years, at least two were the result from dangerous tackles. One was a lift, the other a shoulder charge. That's 40 per cent. You have repeatedly claimed that Aussie Rules and rugby union have similar deaths and injuries to rugby league. Please prove your claim. I proved mine when you challenged me. Time to put up or shut up, Storm.

Cathay, I was asked to post the list after commenting that there'd been many deaths and spinal injuries from rugby league. So many injuries and deaths, in fact, that they aren't "freak occurrences", as some are wrongly claiming. If you say that there are comparable deaths and injuries from rugby union and Aussie Rules, then please list those incidents to prove what you are saying. I posted my list when challenged to prove the point I was making.

April 2013 – Sam McKendry, broken neck, playing for Penrith (NRL). He did that going low to make a tackle around the knees. How do you suppose the NRL should change the game's rules to ensure this happens to no other player?

What type of leadership are you after gonads?

Gonnads, I don't know what the point of this list is? To show RL is too dangerous as I'm sure we could make a similar, if not larger list for Australian Rules & rugby union (esp if you are going to include lower level & overseas lists). Here is an article that states 4 young Australian Rules players have died in recent times within a 2-3 year period. Not replicated in RL at least not recently., so what is your opinion of this? http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/football-match-knock-kills-young-wa-man/story-e6freooo-1226326800985

Considering Dave smith is attempting to turn the game into a business with high profit revenue than the least they could do is appoint (or atleast utilse) a full time time employee to review all games and make consistent decisions.

This might shock and amaze you, Storm Boy, but rock fishing is not rugby league. Clutching at straws.